Think about this:

The federal government wants stock prices to remain low in order to attract investors to treasury bonds.

The federal budget deficit is running at record levels. In order to finance the deficit, the federal government issues treasury bonds. If no one bought treasury bonds, the government would not be able to finance their deficit without having the federal reserve purchase treasuries directly through money it “prints” from nothing. In order to avoid that obviously inflationary measure, the government needs to attract investors into purchasing treasury securities.

If returns on stocks are flat or negative, or if recent history has proven that the stock market is subject to potentially large losses, investors will naturally turn to the safety of bonds. The income from treasuries is seen as one of the safest investments there is. Even if demand for treasuries increases to the point where 3 month treasuries are only yielding 0.01% (as they were in December 2008), that was still seen as a better investment than stocks at the time.

In this respect, the federal government competes with private companies for funding (through private and foreign investment) and has every incentive to make their financial product seem as attractive as possible.